How to protect your family against critical illnesses and accidents?

Throughout your life, you work hard to earn money. However, any unforeseen events like critical ailments and accidents can derail your journey of life. You may hear about many such stories where the families sold their house and other property to meet medical costs. The situation becomes worse if the victim is the breadwinner. The loss of income pushes many families towards poverty.

According to the data released by the Central Bureau of Health Investigation, road accidents are the biggest cause of unnatural death in India. Even deaths due to critical ailments have also increased in the country. The most disturbing thing is that it is the youngsters who are becoming the victims of these unforeseen circumstances.

A rise in the number of critical ailments cases in India

In every minute, four people are dying out of heart attack and most of them belong to the age group of 30-50 years.

The stress in personal or professional lives becomes one of the main reasons for the occurrence of these ailments. With most of the office work happening from the desk, coupled with odd working hours and poor sleep quality, young professionals are leading a highly stressful life and run the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. Smoking and lack of physical activity only worsen the matter.

A sharp increase in the number of accidental deaths

It’s not suicide or HIV that is the biggest killer of young people in the age group of 15 to 29 years, rather maximum of them are getting killed in road accidents. Indian roads which account for the highest fatalities in the world became the most dangerous in 2015 with the number of deaths increasing to 1.46 lakh. It means, 400 road deaths/per day!

Source: Times of India

Rising medical inflation has doubled the troubles

For most of the Indians, the healthcare is increasingly becoming unaffordable, owing to high medical treatment costs in the past few years. According to the National Sample Survey Office (NSSCO), the cost of treatment has recorded a double-digit pace of growth both in rural and urban India.

At the All Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), 40th Convocation Ceremony, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, India’s President, said that around four crore people are pushed towards poverty every year due to medical bills. Further, the sorry state of public hospitals and health centers is forcing an increasing number of patients to depend on private medical centers, which charge high fees. It in turn has raised their medical bills.

How can term insurance help you?

In life, the only thing which is constant is change. While it’s not possible to prevent unpleasant events from happening, one can buy a proper insurance policy to tide over such crises. However, buying separate insurance policies for critical ailments and personal accident may only burden your insurance portfolio with additional policies. So instead of buying separate insurance policies, one should go for a policy which offers 360-degree coverage against unplanned events.

One such policy is ICICI Pru iProtect Smart, an online term insurance policy. Offering dual benefits under a single insurance plan, the policy not only insures your life against death but also pays a lump sum amount in case you are diagnosed with any of the 34 covered critical ailments. Further, the insurer pays double the sum assured to the nominee if the policyholder dies in a road accident.

Unlike other term insurance plans available in the market, it is a comprehensive plan which-

offers financial protection to your family in case of your sudden death

acts as an income replacement by paying a lump sum amount to meet household and other expenses on the diagnosis of a critical ailment

gives double the sum assured if a policyholder dies in an accident

waives all future premiums in the case of permanent disability due to an accident

gives double tax benefits under Section 80C and 80D of the Income Tax Act

In a country, which has one of the lowest health care spending in the world and no major health coverage from the government, the larger burden of health care is borne by individuals. In such a scenario, it makes sense to go for a term insurance, which gives complete coverage against critical ailments and accidents.